Troop 285's 50 Miler expedition for 2000 took place in the Grand Canyon. This page covers the second day of the hike (May 30th, 2000), from Tanner Rapids to Cardenas Marsh along the east end of the Escalante Route.
8:00 AM - On top of the hill with the Indian(?) ruins. Getting hot already! The
Escalante Route is currently classified a Route, meaning it has no well-developed
trail, but the route is well beaten and fairly well cairned and not difficult at
all to follow, as long as you pay a little attention to the rock signs. From
Tanner Rapids to Cardenas Marsh, it's only about two miles of easy hiking
(compared to the rest of our trip, at least!).
Jerry, Derrick, Andrew and Dan pause before heading up the hill to the stone hut.
Shortly out of Tanner beach, there's a decision to make: over the hill, or
around it's north side next to the river. Although it's not obvious which way is
easier, both of our crews took the left trail over the top of the hill. This takes
you right beside an ancient stone hut at the top of the hill, then heads on
towards a right turn around the bend above Cardenas Marsh.
Downhill back toward the river, with Mrs. R. and Dr. Nigrey padding down the trail. Even though we're close to the river, we've contoured up on to the bench about 500 feet above the river level.
Rafters pass by several times, but none stop, let alone offer any cool sodas.
After lunch, there's lots of time to lay around, but of course, that's anathama to Scouts, so several projects are cooked up. (Cooked up? That's what our feet are if we try to walk bare-foot across the sand anywhere the river water can't cool it. Temperature is over 110 degrees F by mid afternoon.)
Perhaps the most ambitious - returning a large boulder to the river from whence it came. Jerry S. and Derrick M. prove this isn't as easy as it might first look.
The main reason we're hanging around at Cardenas beach - to make sure we've fully hydrated for the long trek over the Escalante Route on the following day. Paul is using this partial layover day to acclimate to the heat, and the rest of us are making sure we drink lots of that cool river water, too.
Dan R. and Andrew C. show the benefits of teamwork on the water pumping efforts - they're using an MSR Miniworks with pretty good success, though we found it would plug up on the fine silt in the river water, even though the water was clear to about 8 feet deep. We found we preferred our Pur Hiker since it would pump faster and with less effort, even if the little-bitty o-ring on it's pump rod needed to have the fine silt cleaned from it every 5 to 10 liters.
Jerry S. and Derrick M. display why they've each brought a stove - twice as fast for those two-pot meals.
Last Updated: 2000-07-19